Social media platforms including Facebook and TikTok were no longer available in Gabon on Wednesday, AFP journalists and a watchdog said, after regulators suspended them over security concerns amid an anti-government labour strike.
The central African country’s media regulator (HAC) on Tuesday announced “the immediate suspension of social media platforms” in the country until further notice, saying that online posts were stoking conflict, in a move branded repressive by the opposition.
“Metrics show multiple online platforms are now restricted in Gabon,” connectivity monitor NetBlocks said on X on Wednesday.
According to the watchdog, Facebook, TikTok and WhatsApp, the most widely used social networks in Gabon, were all affected, along with YouTube and Instagram.
But Gabon presidency spokesman Theophane Zame-Nze Biyoghe told AFP in an interview in Paris that the measure was “a suspension, not a permanent ban”.
In a televised statement on Tuesday, HAC spokesman Jean-Claude Mendome complained of “inappropriate, defamatory, hateful, and insulting content” on social media.
He said it was undermining “human dignity, public morality, the honour of citizens, social cohesion, the stability of the Republic’s institutions, and national security”.
The communications body spokesman also cited the “spread of false information”, “cyberbullying” and “unauthorised disclosure of personal data” as reasons for the decision.
The regulator said “freedom of expression, including freedom of comment and criticism”, remained “a fundamental right enshrined in Gabon”.
Less than a year after being elected, Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema has faced his first wave of social unrest, with teachers on strike and other civil servants threatening to do the same.
School teachers began striking over pay and conditions in December and protests over similar demands have since spread to other public sectors -- health, higher education and broadcasting.
Opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze told AFP that the “incomprehensible” social media crackdown was a “disproportionate abuse” of power, which he said went against the constitution.
In an overnight post on Facebook, he called on civil groups “and all Gabonese people dedicated to freedom to mobilise and block this liberty-destroying excess”.
Lessa Juste, a computer scientist who called social media “an essential tool”, told AFP that “the economy is also taking a hit” from the shutdown because it was disrupting people’s work.
“I can’t even work anymore,” complained Gabonese content creator Mister Wils, who has nearly 100,000 followers on TikTok.
The last action by teachers took place in 2022 under then-president Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family ruled the small central African country for 55 years.
Oligui overthrew Bongo in a military coup a few months later and acted on some of the teachers’ concerns, buying calm during the two-year transition period that led up to the presidential election in April 2025.
He won that election with a huge majority, generating high expectations with promises that he would turn the country around and improve living standards.
A wage freeze decided a decade ago by the Bongo government has left teachers struggling to cope with the rising cost of living.
Authorities last month arrested two prominent figures from the teachers’ protest movement, leaving teachers and parents afraid to discuss the strike in public. They were later released.
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